Floor Statements

I thank the Republican whip for yielding.

I observe that our former colleague is on the floor, the Governor of Puerto Rico. Congratulations to him.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected in the House.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider H.R. 5019, the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010.

I thank the gentleman for his question, and I appreciate him yielding.

As I have said before on the floor with respect to scheduling, I agree with him on both items. I think the budget is very important, and clearly the supplemental is very important, and I hope to be able to move those as soon as possible.

We are working on both. I know the Appropriations Committee is working on the supplemental. I know Mr. Spratt is working on budget. So I tell my friend that I share his view of their importance, and that we hope to be able to move those to the floor within the near future. I cannot give him a date, but within the near future.

I really don't have anything specific. I have talked to Mr. Obey. I don't have the specifics of how he is going to consider that. Obviously, that is an appropriations matter, as the gentleman well observes. I would be glad to talk to Mr. Obey specifically about how he is going to proceed and let the gentleman know.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. on Monday next, and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 4, 2010, for morning-hour debate.

I thank my friend for yielding. I thank Mr. Andrews for his extraordinary work on making sure that our national defense is strong and ready and that our troops are provided for as we put them in harm's way. I thank him for his leadership. I also want to thank Mr. McKeon for his leadership on the committee in helping to bring this bill to the floor.

America faces a massive budget challenge, and it must be addressed. The consequences of our dangerous budgetary situation are truly wide- ranging. We all know where America's unsustainable path of debt leads. Among other things, it leads to a dramatically diminished American role in the world. History has seen time and time again great powers forced into retreat by unbearable debt. Simply stated, they did not pay attention to the bottom line.

Democrats take that lesson seriously, which is why we made fiscal responsibility such a priority under President Obama. We passed the PAYGO law, which ensures that Congress pays for what it buys. We passed a health insurance reform bill that significantly cuts the deficit. President Obama has proposed a budget that freezes non-security discretionary spending, cuts the deficit by more than half by 2013, and cuts it by more than $1 trillion over the next decade.

Americans need to know that every dollar in our budget is spent wisely and that none of them go to waste. We talk a lot about waste, fraud, and abuse. Administration after administration talk about it; and then as soon as they leave, we talk again about waste, fraud, and abuse. Whether it's a Republican administration or Democratic administration, we all talk about it, and then we immediately talk about it after the last administration has left. Americans need to know that their dollars are being spent correctly. That's what this bill is focused on. Defense acquisition reform is part of that work, because defense spending accounts for nearly one-fifth of our Federal budget. We took an important step last year when we passed and the President signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act.

I see we have now been rejoined by the chairman of the committee, my good friend, Ike Skelton. Chairman Skelton has been an extraordinary chairman of that committee, and there is no person in the Congress who has fought harder to make sure that the quality of life for our members of our armed services is more attended to than Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri. I thank him for that.

But he also understands that we need to spend our defense dollars smartly, without waste, and make sure that they are effective in providing our warfighters with the tools that they need but make sure that the dollars we spend to do that are done so effectively. Today, we can go a step further than we went last year toward fiscally responsible defense spending which still ensures that our troops can accomplish their mission, which is our number one objective.

The IMPROVE Acquisition Act contains a number of important provisions, Mr. Chair, to eliminate waste without compromising our military effectiveness. While last year's acquisition reform went a long way towards eliminating waste in major defense acquisition programs, this bill recognizes that more than 50 percent of the Defense Department's procurement budget goes towards service contracts. As a result, the IMPROVE Acquisition Act requires rigorous accountability and clear standards for DOD's acquisition of services. The public expects no less and deserves no less in the care of their dollars. It creates a better-trained and more professional acquisition workforce, which ultimately, of course, saves us money, and it brings more responsible financial management to the Defense Department.

As Chairman Skelton, who worked so hard on this bill, put it: ``This legislation will require DOD to adopt the basic management practices that are necessary for anything as complex as the acquisition system to function properly.'' I congratulate Chairman

Skelton on those remarks and on his leadership. Those practices will save taxpayers, as Mr. Andrews just said, billions and billions of dollars, while getting our troops the equipment and services they require sooner--and that we want them to have.

Our position in the world is dependent on the brave efforts and sacrifice of our troops. But it also depends on our demonstrating more responsibility here at home. Our long-term security rests, to a great extent, on that challenge. We need a national conversation about balancing our budget, and this bill is an important part of achieving that larger goal. I am pleased that we bring it to the floor with bipartisan support. I'm pleased that we will pass it with bipartisan support. And I congratulate both the Chair, subcommittee Chair, and ranking members for their leadership on this bill and urge my colleagues to strongly support it.

Mr. Speaker, for all but 11 minutes of the State of Israel's existence, it has found its foremost advocate and ally here: the United States of America. And what were those 11 minutes? That was the time it took the news of Israel's independence to travel around the world and reach the desk of President Truman, the first to recognize a new member of the world community and a new friend.

Israel, President Truman said, ``has a glorious future before it--not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.'' Sixty two years later, as Israel marks its independence, those words have been confirmed time and again. Our alliance with Israel, and the common interests we share, run deep. But even if those common interests amounted to nothing, we would still see in Israel a reflection of deepest values and great ideals.

Sixty two years ago, Israel's founders set their names to a declaration that embodied those ideals--the declaration that ended two millennia of exile for the Jewish people. It read, in part: ``THE STATE OF ISRAEL . . . will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.''

In those words, in the sprit that animates them, and in the political life that strives each day to live by them, we see our own spirit, our own struggle, our own founding promise.

And those common values are at the heart of Congress's unshakeable, bipartisan unity on

Israel and its security. I speak for all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, when I say: the bond between our nations was powerful long before we set foot in this chamber, and it will outlast all of us. In that spirit, Congress must continue to support strong foreign aid for our ally. And we must continue to insist that regimes that threaten Israel's safety, and the world's, recognize Israel's right to exist-- and act accordingly.

Few ideas in history have been more daring than the idea that the Jewish people could end generations of exile and build a thriving state, called to the highest principles of justice. Few ideas have been more hopeful, or more demanding. And few are more deserving of the world's sustaining effort.

I thank my friend of some 45 years, the chairman of the committee, for yielding. And I want to, before I start my remarks, say that I agree with him with respect to his observations regarding the Obama administration's efforts that are bearing positive fruit with respect to our allies around the world. We are not where we need to be and they are not all allies, but they certainly are partners in responding to this threat to the international community.

We know what a grave danger a nuclear Iran would pose to America's security, to our ally Israel's security, and, indeed, to the security of the international community. That is why Mr. Berman and Ms. Ros- Lehtinen reported out a bill. That is why we passed a bill. That's why the Senate has passed a bill. And now it's time to go to conference. It's time to resolve the differences that exist and send a clear and unmistakable message.

The dangerous consequences of inaction range from a fierce regional arms race to a nuclear umbrella for terrorism, to the unthinkable. With American and international security at stake, Iran's nuclearization is a grave proximate threat and cannot stand. That is why the United States must do everything in its power, Mr. Speaker, to stop Iran's nuclear pursuit.

Through years of diplomatic silence, Iran's nuclear program grew. President Obama took a course of patient engagement. And while Iran's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith has been exposed to the world, it has grown even closer to its goal. Today, the International Atomic Energy Agency feels that Iran has enough low-enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs.

So time is of the essence. By proceeding with this motion, Congress moves closer to the imposition of sanctions that will hit the Iranian economy at its weakest points: its banking system, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the refined petroleum Iran depends upon.

I support, strongly, this motion, knowing full well that sanctions are never a perfectly precise instrument and that they may mean hardship for ordinary Iranians who already suffer under the repressive regime in Iran. But I support sanctions nonetheless because they can work when the international community recognizes that an outlaw nation poses a common threat to us all, a case that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are making persuasively, as was the point of the chairman of the committee, to our fellow Security Council members and a case that the administration continued to make at this month's nuclear security summit. An extraordinary summit, I might add, of historical precedence, where 47 nations from around the world came here to Washington to meet together, including the President of China, to say that nuclear proliferation poses a danger to all, not just to a single nation, not just to a regional group of nations, but to all.

I support sanctions because Tehran can choose, at any time, to negotiate in good faith and set aside its aggressive nuclear pursuit. And I support sanctions because when properly designed, they can be a source of powerful pressure on the Iranian regime, pressure both external and internal.

As Britain's Telegraph newspaper reported on Monday, ``there is now increasing resentment that Iran's once popular nuclear program could be distracting from more urgent needs in the face of economic mismanagement and sanctions. Far from resenting the U.S.-designed sanctions, Iranians blame the slowdown on their own government.

`` `Nuclear energy is something that I supported, but why go about it in this way?' asked an Iranian citizen Zori Baghi, a pensioner and father of two.'' He went on to ask, `` `If it is legitimate, then why are we suffering for it in this way? If it's not legitimate, then do it in the right way or give it up. We're paying too heavy a price,' '' so said an Iranian citizen about that country's nuclear ambitions.

It is my belief, my colleagues, that if smart sanctions take effect, more and more Iranians will come to the same conclusion and so, hopefully, will the Iranian regime. Sanctions will show the regime that its embrace of nuclear proliferation carries a cost that is far too high. We cannot expect a change of heart from Tehran, but we can demand a change of behavior.

My colleagues, this action is timely and perhaps past time, but it is always timely to do the right thing, to speak up, to act, and to encourage our allies as well and our partners and our fellow citizens in this globe to act in a way that will protect them and protect our international community.

So I rise in strong support of this motion to go to conference and the motion to instruct, and I thank my chairman for his leadership on this issue. He is working both to have effective action taken by the Congress and to assist the administration in reaching the objective in as positive a way as is possible.

I thank the Republican whip for yielding.

Madam Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and at 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and at 12 p.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected in the House.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, including the very important H.R. 3393, Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2009, introduced by Representative Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

In addition, we will consider H.R. 5013, Implementing Management for Performance and Related Reforms to Obtain Value in Every Acquisition Act of 2010, and H.R. 2499, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2009.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As the gentleman knows, our number one priority has been and continues to be the progress on the creation of jobs. Last month's report was a positive report. We gained 162,000 jobs, and the economy is showing signs of very substantial improvement as a result of the Recovery Act and of other actions that we've taken to get Americans back to work. So that will continue to be our focus.

Having said that, we also have passed already the HIRE Act, which we think

will have a very substantial, positive effect, which includes payroll tax forgiveness for the hiring of new employees who have been unemployed for some period of time. If they are kept on for 52 weeks, there will be a $1,000 additional payment, which we hope will encourage employers to hire new people. Additionally in that bill, we gave an extension of the Highway Trust Fund to allow for continued and increased investment in infrastructure and the Build America Bonds legislation, as well as giving a boost to small business growth in terms of expensing.

In addition, the House passed the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act, which is pending in the Senate. We hope that it is coming back to us this work period. We would like to build on our record of job-creating legislation with additional relief to small businesses.

The President has proposed, as the gentleman knows, the Small Business Lending Fund that would take $30 billion of TARP funds, which was obviously designed to try to get our economy moving again, and provide capital infusion to local banks, and provide assets of $10 billion or less to incentivize small business lending.

Also, we hope to complete action with the Senate on a long-term extension of unemployment insurance, COBRA benefits and tax extenders for businesses, large and small. Obviously, those pieces of legislation have passed the House.

I expect the House will also take action this work period on the COMPETES Act, which is relatively noncontroversial, but invests in growing our economy, particularly in technology innovations, math, and science.

Other items on our agenda for this work period are budget resolution, defense acquisition reform, which I announced we would do next week, defense authorization, the Afghanistan/Pakistan supplemental, the Haiti supplemental, and of course the Iran sanctions conference report, which I hope to have done. As to the resolution that you and I just voted for, the motion to instruct, I urge that that be reported back by the Memorial Day break.

Before the gentleman asks another question, would you yield so I might comment on the comments that the gentleman made?

The gentleman indicates that we want to stop spending. Every economist from his side of the aisle to our side of the aisle said that if we did not spend money last year that we wouldn't have grown the economy. In fact, Ben Bernanke, the Republican-appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve by President Bush; and Secretary Paulson all said you had better invest or you are going to go into a depression, not a recession.

The gentleman talks about job creation, and it is very interesting because, generally speaking, he wants to return to the policies of the Bush administration. And the Bush administration, of course, was the worst job-performing administration since Herbert Hoover. I know the gentleman knows that because those statistics are pretty clear. It created 19,400 jobs per month. You talk about 400 and some odd thousand jobs. I agree with the gentleman. We need to create that level if we are going to get the jobs that your economic program lost, 19,400 jobs, and you need 100,000 to stay even. That was average over 96 months of the policies that were pursued during the Bush administration that my friend supported.

Very frankly, if you will remember, during the Clinton administration, in an economic program that your party didn't support to a person--everyone voted against it--we created 216,000 jobs per month. Now, there's no secret as to where those jobs were lost. If you create 10 percent of the number of jobs you need to stay even, you're going to go behind and we have a real deficit.

The CBO says that the program that was adopted that, of course, your party opposed, created 2 million new jobs or retained jobs in our economy. Over the last 5 months, we have had a net positive growth in jobs. We grew 162,000 jobs last month. The gentleman is absolutely correct, not nearly enough, but much better than the 779,000 jobs that were lost in the last month of the Bush administration or the average 726,000 jobs that were lost in the last 3 months of the Bush administration.

We are now in the pluses. We are starting to grow. We need to do much, much more. And that's why I responded to the gentleman, when he asked me what we were going to do, we're going to continue to focus on bringing jobs back to America and to our people.

Well, I hope that we act on a budget certainly before the end of this work period. I think it's important to pass a budget. I have said that. I am working towards that end.

Will the gentleman yield on that?

The gentleman would like to pretend that the Bush administration didn't exist. He doesn't like to look back. He doesn't like history. He doesn't like to learn from our mistakes. I notice he doesn't outline the mistakes that the Bush administration made and that he made in supporting the Bush economic policies, but presumably he believes they existed, which led to such a disastrous performance of our economy. The turning of a $5.6 trillion surplus that the Bush administration inherited, which allowed it to do some of the things that it did without paying for them because they inherited surpluses, unfortunately, they left a $5 trillion deficit to this administration. They left a deep, deep, deep hole that we have been trying to dig out, without much help, frankly, from your side of the aisle, I will tell my friend. And we are getting out of that hole. Almost every indicator indicates that, including a growth in jobs. Not nearly to where people are feeling it. So we need to make sure that we continue to create jobs and create an economy that is working much better than it worked during the Bush administration.

The gentleman mentions that we were in charge of Congress in 2007. Yes, in 2006 the American public said we don't like the policies that the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress are pursuing; we want a change. We did change. But the gentleman well knows that no veto of President Bush was overridden to change the economic policies you were pursuing, period. We couldn't do that. We couldn't do it until such time as January of 2009 occurred. When it occurred, unfortunately and tragically for the American people and the millions, 8 million- plus, to be exact, lost their jobs, a financial system that was suffering from egregious regulatory neglect and had, as a result, put many, many taxpayers, millions of taxpayers, to the responsibility of trying to stabilize the ship of state. And we have done that.

The good news is that money is being paid back. And the good news is that in terms of the bill that you and I both supported but two-thirds of your party did not, we did stabilize, at the request of the Bush administration, the financial community.

So when the gentleman says that we need to grow jobs, we do. But very frankly, if the gentleman is proposing the same policies that were pursued for 8 years under the Bush administration, then that won't get it and didn't get it. And that's why it is important to learn, not to place blame, but to learn, as I said the other day, from those failures and not repeat them, to invest in the growth of our economy.

First of all, the gentleman does this often. I never said there has been enough tax relief. What you just said I said, I never said that. Nobody heard me say that.

If I can, I think you anticipated what the facts are as you know. I didn't say that but you anticipated I might say it.

Ninety-five percent of the American public, 95 percent of the American working people, got a tax cut, as you recall, in the legislation that you voted against, $280 billion in tax relief. That went into the pockets of Americans, helped them get through some very, very tough times which we inherited, did not create, which we inherited, and moving forward.

Now, with respect to the tax increases that you referred to earlier, they are going into effect because of a policy that I voted against but I think you voted for. You were here in 2001 and 2003. And why did you do that? You talk about budgeting. You did it because you couldn't conform to your budget requirements. So what you simply did was you did the artifice, with all due respect, to saying, well, they will expire in 2010. So what is projected to happen in 2010 is a direct result of the budget and the policies that you promoted and voted for, I tell my friend.

Will the gentleman yield on that?

When you say taxes have gone up in this period, what period are you referring to?

And what were those taxes?

The health care bill has not gone into effect. You're saying this year taxes have been increased.

Will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman perhaps believes if he says it enough that I said there's been enough tax relief maybe people will believe it. I have never said that on this floor or any other place. So I wish the gentleman would stop mischaracterizing what I say.

Now, very frankly, what I have said is the policies we pursued were not working demonstrably when we took over the Presidency of the United States, and could change policy, which we did. We changed policy consistent with, frankly, what Senator McCain said ought to be done during the course of the election, not the same way, but that we had to invest in our economy. Mark Zandi, Senator McCain's economic adviser, along with others, said we needed to do what we did.

Now, the gentleman voted against it. But it has, I tell you, worked demonstrably, 2 million new jobs according to the CBO--not new jobs, retained or created. In fact, over 2 million jobs; 162,000 jobs created last month. Not enough. He is correct.

But to ignore the fact that we are making some progress, I don't know whether you saw Larry Kudlow, he said, you know, stop talking down the economy, stop saying that things aren't getting better because the psychology of the economy is very important. And, in fact, whether it's the stock market indication going up, they have confidence, whether it's the growth in our economy from a 6.4 percent decline in the economy that we took over from the Bush administration, to now, a 5.6 percent growth, that figure doesn't mean anything to anybody unless they get jobs. I understand that. We need to get jobs.

What it does mean, however, with the economy growing, that jobs will follow. And that's important.

So please don't put words in my mouth. We need to cut taxes for the American public. In fact, as you know--I want to remark on something that you said. Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the earned income tax credit. Why was he a supporter of the earned income tax credit? Because he thought making sure people had enough money to get by on, buy some food for their family, buy some clothes for their kids to go to school and pay their mortgage payment, was an important thing to happen.

That's the difference, frankly, between our two parties. We don't believe that was a handout. It was a hand up in a very difficult economy. We said--and they don't pay taxes. Why don't they pay taxes, I ask my friend rhetorically. The reason they don't pay taxes is they're not making enough money to pay taxes.

Under your tax program, I would suggest to you, you did that, we supported it. They didn't pay taxes. But what we said is, they've got to live, their kids have to eat, they have to get by. And to the extent that they have some assistance in doing so and spend that money, as every economist will tell you, and you know this to be the case, it will help the economy grow. Yes, we help those people as well.

Maybe you think that was simply a handout and that we shouldn't have done it. But we did it, and it is the difference between our parties in many instances.

I yield back.

Will my friend yield one more time?

It is a new time. We're paying our bills. Now, we had to borrow a lot of money because we were in a very deep hole. And everybody said if you didn't, all economists, Marty Feldstein, conservative adviser to Ronald Reagan, said you need to put more money back into the economy.

We didn't have any money. You had a $5.6 trillion surplus that you inherited. We inherited a $5 trillion deficit. So we had no money. Your administration spent it all.

But you didn't pay for things you bought. You didn't pay for your tax cuts. Very nice to give tax cuts, but if you don't pay for them and they create deficits, then who's going to pay for them? Our children. And that's what happened.

We went to war. One was absolutely essential. We went to another war that some say was of choice, that is, in Iraq. We somewhat abandoned Afghanistan when we went to Iraq, and we didn't succeed in Afghanistan; but we didn't pay for either one of those wars.

Who are we expecting to pay for those wars? Our children.

You adopted a drug prescription program which, very frankly, we made better in the health care bill. We made seniors more secure in getting their prescription drugs. But you didn't pay for it.

Your economy that you left us, very frankly, is responsible for 38 percent of that deficit to which you referred; 90 percent-plus of the deficit that confronts this country are direct results of the policies pursued in the last administration. Just as when Roosevelt inherited from the Hoover administration a very substantial downturn, it took him time to turn that economy around.

So I say to my friend, we are prepared to work together, but we're not prepared to pretend that--when you say times are different, they are different. They are very different. The difference between a $5.6 trillion surplus and a $5 trillion deficit, the Bush administration inheritance and our inheritance. And that has made it tough. It's made it tough on us, tough on the American people. And we're trying to get out of this. I think we are.

And again I repeat to my friend, Larry Kudlow gave you some good advice, very conservative guy, on television. You know him; I know him. We appear on his program. And he urged those of you on the conservative side of the ledger, don't deny the facts. That's what Larry Kudlow said. Don't deny the progress that has been made because if you deny it and people believe that denial, they won't think things are getting better and they won't act accordingly. And that's not going to be good for our economy. It won't be good for our country.

So I caution my friend to, when things are positive, have the ability to say, yes, we've made some positive progress from where we were before this administration came into office.

I yield back.

If the gentleman will yield, I'll simply say, I agree with the gentleman. And I agree with the gentleman, and certainly want to join together in this effort. And the gentleman will observe, that's why we have adopted, readopted statutory PAYGO. We think that will constrain spending. That's why we've created a commission to look at spending and make recommendations to get a handle on the spending in this country and bring our deficit in line as it was in the nineties.

And that is why the President has submitted a budget that freezes discretionary spending at last year's levels. So we agree with you that we need to move in that direction and, in fact, we are.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

I want to thank Chairman Conyers for his extraordinary leadership on behalf of the rights of all peoples. His role in the civil rights movement has been extraordinary, and it continues to this date.

Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of this resolution and in memory of an extraordinary woman.

I had the privilege of knowing Dorothy Height for some four decades. That does not mean that I saw her regularly during those four decades, but I saw her frequently during those four decades. She also exuded the positive, constructive approach that she took to solving problems, to bringing people together. The historian Taylor Branch rightly called Dr. Height's brothers and sisters in the civil rights movement the ``modern founders of democracy.''

Today, we honor the legacy that she leaves behind. What a wonderful, long, productive, constructive, important life we honor in Dorothy Height.

Dorothy Height was an extraordinarily gracious human being. When meeting with her, I never failed to leave her side and not feel better. I would feel better about the relationship that I had with her and that she had with others as I saw her interface with others in the room, in the crowd, in the meeting. Dorothy Height was and is a giant. The Washington Post had on its front page today a very large picture of Dorothy Height. It was appropriate that, in the Nation's capital, Dorothy Height would be given such prominence, not for her death but for the life that she lived, for the contributions she made.

We are all better for Dorothy Height's life. We are all freer for Dorothy Height's life. We were lifted as a society by Dorothy Height and by those with whom she worked from a segregated society where the perception was that some Americans were not equal to other Americans. That was contrary to the premise articulated by Thomas Jefferson but not lived out by Thomas Jefferson and our Founding Fathers. Their premise was accurate, but their practice was not. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Dorothy Height; John Conyers; John Lewis, who serves with us; Jim Clyburn, our whip; and so many others called America's attention to the fact that it was not living out the reality of its promise, not just to African Americans but to all Americans.

Dorothy Height showed extraordinary courage and conviction in the face of bigotry and discrimination. Like so many in this body who faced bigotry and discrimination, they did not allow that to poison their souls. They did not allow that to diminish their relationships even with those whom they saw as oppressors. To that extent, they rose above the conduct directed at them in order to change that conduct through love and positive engagement. Dorothy Height is a perfect example to all of us, young and old, who are participating in this society which, unfortunately, too often we see today falls into anger and confrontation rather than civility and discussion.

I am worried about the anger that I see in the society today. In some respects I think not justified at the level that we find it. Yes, there is room for disagreement, but Dorothy Height shows us that notwithstanding the fact that there may be disagreement, notwithstanding the fact that there may be people who do not treat us as we would want to be treated, that the way to solve that is to do so constructively and civilly with debate that states the facts and the truth but does not devolve into hate and division.

So I am pleased to join my friend John Conyers. I came to Congress some 30 years ago, and we were talking about making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, not a holiday to play but a holiday to recognize the contribution that was made then and the work that still remains to be done. John Conyers had me out in front of the Capitol on January 15 or close to that time every year, and I was so proud to stand with him and say to America let us recognize those who, as Taylor Branch has said, are the modern founders of democracy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership. Thank you for bringing this resolution to the floor to recognize an extraordinary, wonderful, lovely person whose spirit enriched us all and enriched our country.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and I congratulate him for his leadership, and I thank Mr. Camp as well for his work.

In the fall, Madam Speaker, of 2008, America did not know whether it was heading for the second Great Depression. Those weren't my words. Those were the words of Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve.

Since then, the work of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress has headed off disaster. Most important has been the Recovery Act, which cut taxes for small businesses and 95 percent of families, funded thousands of job-creating projects across America, provided emergency assistance to those hit hardest by the recession, saved States from laying off teachers, firefighters, police officers, and much more.

No matter what its partisan critics say, the facts say it clearly: The Recovery Act is working.

The Recovery Act created some 2 million jobs. And since President Obama took office, monthly job losses are down 96 percent, from 726,000 over a 4-month average during the latter part of the Bush administration, to 27,500 over the last 4 months, a 96 percent improvement of job loss. That is not success, but it is progress. Success will be when we grow jobs, as we did in November.

Our economy is growing again. In the most recent quarter, it grew by 5.9 percent. That is the fastest rate in 6 years,

and the second straight quarter of growth under President Obama. In addition, it is a 12.3 percent turnaround from the last quarter of 2008 to the last quarter of 2009.

The Dow is up some 60 plus percent from the low it hit shortly after President Obama signed the Recovery Act, the S&P 500 is up 72 percent from its low, and the NASDAQ is up 87 percent now, since we passed the Recovery Act. That is progress to be proud of.

But as long as millions of Americans remain out of work, through no fault of their own, we have not reached the goal. We have not had the success we want.

We know that, to a family struggling through chronic unemployment, all the positive economic numbers in the world must look like they bear little relation to reality. That is because, time and again, employment numbers are the last part of a recession to turn around.

The families who are struggling and suffering right now did not create this economic collapse, but they are bearing its brunt. So it is imperative that we act for them.

This month, the President signed the HIRE Act, which eliminated the payroll tax for every employed worker who is hired. Now, the good news by that is that we don't pay anything unless we accomplish the objective. If they add the jobs, they get the credit, which the nonpartisan CBO calls one of the most effective methods of job creation.

The HIRE Act also gives businesses tax credits for keeping new employees on the payroll, helps small businesses finance their expansion, and extends job-creating and much-needed highway programs.

When the House passed the HIRE Act, Democrats made it clear on this floor that it was an important step, but by no means the last one. That is why we are back here today, and that is why I urge my colleagues to support the Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act.

This bill expands the successful Build America bonds and Recovery Zone bonds, which helps State and local governments fund needed projects and put people to work. As of this month, Build America bonds helped State and local governments pay for $78 billion in infrastructure programs, projects that were needed but did not have the funds. Build America bonds assured that they had the funds and created the jobs.

This bill also contains provisions to help small business innovate and grow. It increases the deduction for business startup expenses, so enterprising Americans all over our country will have stronger incentives to open the books of new businesses, an important measure we owe to my Maryland colleague and friend, Congressman Frank Kratovil.

And, it excludes 100 percent of small business capital gains from taxation, which will lead to a new influx of investment, the investment small businesses need to expand and hire new workers.

For Democrats, job creation is our single-most important job. I think, frankly, Republicans share that sentiment. I think that is a bipartisan sentiment. This bill carries that work forward, and I believe it will provide significant relief to the Americans who are still feeling the recession's harsh effects.

Again, I congratulate Mr. Levin for the work of his committee on bringing this to the floor. I also want to congratulate my friend, Charlie Rangel, who has been so instrumental in working on these jobs bills for so long. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to strongly support this legislation.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Today is March 21, 2010. On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a march across that bridge for the vote in this democracy.

It was a march towards a greater freedom for many Americans. It was a march for a better quality of life for many Americans. Indeed, it was a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for freedom and a better realization of the promise of our democracy.

Today, March 21, 2010, we will cross another bridge. It is not a physical bridge, but it is a bridge that too many Americans find that they cannot cross; a river that separates them from the security of having available the best health care that is available in the world available to them.

We are here to conclude a day of debate, which concludes months of debate, in a national conversation that began more than a century ago.

But this much is beyond debate. American health care is on an unsustainable course. By the end of this debate, another family will have fallen into bankruptcy because someone had the bad fortune simply to be sick. More families will have joined them in paying more and more for less and less health coverage. More businesses will have weighted bankruptcy against cutting their workers' care and their workers will have lost.

We have before us a bill to change an unsustainable course. That is our choice this evening. It is a historic choice. It's a choice that all of us volunteered to be put in the position to make. It is a choice that we will be honored to make this evening. We stood in this Chamber tonight with John Dingell, John Dingell, who stood at that rostrum with the gavel that the Speaker will use tonight to gavel through Medicare, that ensured that millions and millions and millions of seniors would not be crushed by poverty and put into bankruptcy by the cost of health care.

Indeed, they will have been given the opportunity for a longer, better quality of life in America when John Dingell brought that gavel down on that desk and noted the passage of Medicare in 1965.

For more than 3,000 district events, more than 100 hearings, and almost 2 years of public debate, health insurance reform has stood up to the scrutiny, to criticism, indeed, to falsehoods. But this purpose is older than that. Before we were born, the task of bringing affordable health care to every American was on our Nation's agenda, waiting for this day. At the beginning of this decade in 2002, George W. Bush said, ``All Americans should be able to choose a health care plan that meets their needs at affordable prices.'' George Bush was right.

In 1976, Gerald Ford spoke of ``our effort to upgrade and perpetuate our total health care system so no individual in this country will lack help whenever or wherever he needs it.'' Gerald Ford was right.

And Richard Nixon said this, ``Let us act now.'' That was in 1974, when there were far fewer Americans who did not have health insurance and where health care was less costly. Richard Nixon was right in 1974 on this issue. Let us in 2010, in a bipartisan way, perhaps not a bipartisan vote, but recognizing that this has been a bipartisan objective, a bipartisan vision, for those Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents whom I have not quoted but whom, as all of you know, were equally committed to that vision and that objective, affordable health care for all, for all Americans. It was embraced by both parties' nominees in the last campaign, Senator Obama and Senator McCain.

But what a campaign of fear this bill has faced this last year. Its critics call it, without justification, and we will hear it tonight, a ``government takeover.'' That's not true, but if you believe it's true, perhaps you think we ought to repeal veterans health care, which is clearly government-run health care. Perhaps we ought to repeal Medicare, government participated but private sector providers. Perhaps you believe Medicare should be repealed. I don't think you do; I hope you don't.

It is more control, however, for whom? For consumers, and less for insurance companies. It is the end of discrimination against Americans with preexisting conditions, and the end of medical bankruptcy and caps on benefits. It is coverage you can rely on whether you lose your job or become your own boss, coverage that reaches 95 percent of all Americans. Its critics call it tyranny. There is none.

It is a free, competitive, transparent marketplace where individuals and small businesses can pool together to buy private insurance at low rates. It is lower cost for the middle class and an end to the prescription drug doughnut hole that has faced too many struggling seniors. Its critics mock this as ``out-of-control government.''

In truth, it is the biggest definite-reduction bill any of us will have an opportunity to vote on in this Congress and, indeed, in other Congresses as well. Indeed, it's the deepest definite reduction since the Clinton budget of the 1990s that ushered in a budget surplus and historic prosperity.

According to the nonpartisan CBO, this bill is $143 billion in savings in the first decade and more than $1 trillion of savings in the second decade. We can add to those deficit savings real cost controls that bring down the price of the world's most expensive health care. Take those into account, says leading health care economist David Cutler, and America saves an additional $600 billion in the first 10 years and even more in the second 10 years.

Yet there are some who hope for the bill's defeat. They would see that, I think, as the defeat of one party. One Senator made that observation and said this might be the President's Waterloo. If this bill fails, the Waterloo will be that of the people who are without health care insurance, the people who are struggling to make sure that their children are healthy and well and safe. But it would be a defeat for them and for our country, for a healthy America is a stronger America.

They saw the same thing in 1993, my Republican colleagues, when to a person, as I believe will happen tonight, unfortunately, in 1993, to a person they did the same thing. My Republican friends voted without a single exception against the 1993 economic reform plan of the Clinton administration.

Congressman Boehner asked, ``Who does this spending stimulate except maybe the liberal faculty at Harvard or Berkeley?''

Congressman Kasich said, ``If it was to work, then I'd have to become a Democrat. ``

It did work, and he didn't change. It was a partisan vote, Mr. Speaker, a partisan vote that helped create 22.7 million new jobs, contrary to what so many of my Republican friends said that bill would do, and a record budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, contrary to the assertion of Mr. Armey that it would create deep debt.

That bill passed through a gauntlet of slurs, hyperbole, and untruths, and so did Medicare, which Republicans called ``brazen socialism,'' and so did Social Security, which a Republican Congressman called the ``lash of the dictator.''

I don't know whether there are any Republicans in this body tonight that believe that Social Security is the lash of the dictator. I hope not.

Those slurs were false in 1935, they were false in 1965, and, ladies and gentlemen of this House, they are false in 2010. Ladies and gentlemen of this House, this bill, this bill will stand in the same company, for the misguided outrage of its opposition and for its lasting accomplishment of the American people.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to honor some of the ``little punk staffers'' who gave so much to help us bring this bill to the floor. I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle who did so much to bring your prescription drug bill to the floor, they need to be honored. They need to be thanked. They need to be respected for the work they do for this House, for each of us but, more importantly, for America.

From the Legislative Counsel's Office, Ed Grossman, Jessica Shapiro, Megan Renfrew, Warren Burke, Larry Johnston, Henry Christrup, Wade Ballou and Scott Probst.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1203, I call up the bill (H.R. 4872) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 202 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2010, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, is the motion going to be read?

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

I thank the Speaker.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have come a far pace. The majority of this House has just voted to do for Americans what a hundred years of Presidents have asked for. We are on the cusp of a great victory for America and for Americans. This motion is inconsistent with reconciliation, a process that 72 percent of the time was pursued by the other party. They know that this motion is not in order and they know this motion would not have support in the Senate, so they are indirectly trying to kill this bill. However, as well, I think they well misstate the case.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

My colleagues, we have come this far not to be thwarted by a procedural motion that will never have effect. They know that. We know that. Vote ``no.'' Vote ``yes'' for the health care of all America.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the Republican whip for yielding. As previously announced, on Friday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. On Saturday, Members are advised that the House will meet at 9 a.m., which is the custom, with recorded votes as early as 10 a.m. This is a change from the previously announced schedule.

For those Members who said they couldn't hear me, let me tell you a little story Senator Sarbanes used to tell. He was giving a speech once and a man in the back of the room said, ``I can't hear you.'' And immediately somebody in the front of the room jumped up and said, ``I can; and I'll trade places with you.''

Now back to this exciting weekend that we're about to have. On Saturday, as I said, we'll come in at 9 a.m., which is the custom, with recorded votes as early as 10 a.m. This is a change from the previously announced schedule. In addition, on Sunday, the House will meet at 1 p.m. for legislative business. On Monday, Members are advised votes could be earlier than 6:30 p.m. Now, many of you will be here on Sunday and not go home. We're going to try to work that out. I wanted to talk to the minority leadership, the Republican leadership, on this issue.

These are also changes that were not previously announced. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. In addition, we will consider H.R. 3644, the Ocean, Coastal, and Watershed Education Act; and H.R. 1612, the Public Lands Service Corps Act. In addition, we will consider the health care legislation, which is now posted on the House Rules Committee Web site. We will consider that with 72 hours notice to all the Members of that posting.

Votes will not begin before 2 o'clock. I don't know exactly. We come in at 1 o'clock. We may have votes at 1 o'clock in terms of procedural votes. But I want to make it clear we will have no vote on the health care bill until 72 hours after the posting that has just occurred.

Mr. Speaker, I move that we lay the resolution on the table.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Go Terps! And they did. I'm a graduate of the University of Maryland. Like so many others, I am very proud of my alma mater. I went there many, many years ago. I have owned a number of homes throughout my life, but one of them was three doors from Gary Williams. I've known Gary Williams for all the time he's been at the University of Maryland, which is now over 20 years. Gary Williams is an extraordinary individual, an extraordinary coach, and has

had great success at every school he's coached at throughout this country. He's been at Maryland for, as I said, over two decades. He's the most winning coach in Maryland history. Lefty Driesell was his predecessor--not immediate predecessor, but in terms of holding that record. Lefty did a great job at the University of Maryland.

Maryland was picked very low in the ACC standings at the beginning of this season. The expectations were not high. The University of Maryland team had a freshman strong forward. So it was perceived that inside, they wouldn't have the kind of game they needed to compete in a conference like the Atlantic Coast Conference, which we, of course, in the ACC believe is the best conference in the United States, although I want to observe, it may not have been the best conference this year in the United States; but over the years, it certainly has been. But there were some very strong conferences. Not to forget to mention the Big East, it is pretty strong itself. But in any event, we weren't picked very high.

The reason Gary Williams has been chosen appropriately for the honor of being Coach of the Year in the ACC, which has some extraordinary coaches, like Coach Krzyzewski, Coach Roy Williams at the University of North Carolina, and other great coaches, is because he took a team that did not have high expectations from the public and took it to a tie with Duke, one of the great teams in this country, to lead the ACC. They both finished 13-3, I believe, in the ACC.

Wake Forest, a great team as well. I want to thank the gentlelady from Maryland, Donna Edwards, who shares Prince George's County in which University of Maryland College Park is located, for her gracious congratulations. She gives me a hard time. Wake beat us this year, and I don't know whether we'll meet again this year, probably not. But notwithstanding that, I appreciate her gracious support of this resolution.

I want to tell you that we have a young player. He is a senior. His name is Greivis Vasquez. Greivis Vasquez is a real personality on the court. Greivis Vasquez was the high scorer, picked as Player of the Year in the ACC, and was an extraordinary leader of our team on the floor. He was the spark plug of our team.

And when our team was down and needed to get up, needed to be inspired, it was Greivis Vasquez who, along with some other extraordinary players--and we had nine or 10 players who could have started at some other teams, frankly, wonderful players. Some, Jordan Williams, our new freshman who is going to be an extraordinary sophomore, and hopefully we may even keep him until his junior year.

But that is why we prevailed in the ACC. That's why we're going to prevail in the NCAA. We play Houston, as you've heard. I'm sure I will talk to the Representatives from the Houston area about this game, coming up Friday at 9:50 p.m. We will focus on that game, and we'll talk to you a little bit about what you think and what we think. But it's going to be an excellent year.

But notwithstanding that, I was in Atlanta when the University of Maryland won the national championship. We played Indiana that year. I want to personally congratulate my friend Gary Williams on the great coaching job he did this year. I want to congratulate the entire team for the great job they did, and I want to wish them the very best of luck in the NCAA tournament.

I thank the gentlelady, and I thank the gentleman for bringing this resolution to the floor to appropriately recognize a great year for a great team, a great coach and a great ACC player of the year.

I thank my friend, the Republican whip, for yielding.

Madam Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and at 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, including a number of bills focused on improving government operations: the Plain Language Act, H.R. 946, by Representative Braley; H.R. 4720, Taking Responsibility for Congressional Pay Act, by Representative Kirkpatrick of Arizona. A complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today, as is the custom.

In addition, we will consider further action on H.R. 1586, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act. Further action on the jobs agenda is possible, and further action on health care legislation is also possible.

First, let me say that no matter how often the gentleman and his colleagues want to say so, that we are going to ``ram through'' something, no matter how many times the press and public may be misled by that assertion, we are not ramming through anything, I tell my friend.

We are following the rules of the House and following the rules of the Senate that have been decades in existence, which, when they have been used, 72 percent of the time they have been used, 72 percent of the time they have been used, I tell my friend, your party used them. They are the rules, and we are going to follow the rules.

Both bills that are pending before the Congress of the United States have been passed with a majority, and, in fact, the Senate bill was passed by a 60 percent majority, I tell my friend, not rammed through, after a full year of debate and discussion, scores of hearings, hundreds of witnesses, and thousands of hours of consideration.

I tell my friend that you can say we are ramming something through as much as you want and it will not make it true, no matter how often it is said by your side of the aisle, who, in my opinion, wants simply to stop the legislation in its tracks.

I tell my friend that we are going to be in the regular order, as we have been on these bills since they were introduced. We are going to be in the regular order in terms of considering the passage of bills that have received majorities in both Houses. As I say again, the Senate bill has received a 60 percent majority in its House.

Now, the American public, frankly, I expect when we vote on bills, they expect things to pass by majority vote. They do here. They unfortunately don't in the other body. So you can have 59 percent, as we had in the House, to give children health care, and children don't get health care.

So I say to my friend, as I said, the expectation is we will consider passing health care legislation this coming week. We think it is long overdue. We expect the Budget Committee to mark up a reconciliation bill, as the committee did when the Republicans were in charge on 16 occasions out of the 22 that reconciliation has been used, 72 percent of the time, as I want to reiterate; because I, frankly, get a little impatient with this assertion that somehow a process that you utilized 72 percent of the times it has been utilized, which means we used it 28 percent, that somehow now when we are using it, it is somehow now not consistent with the rules. My friend knows it is consistent with the rules, and we are pursuing that process.

The committee, I expect, will mark up on Monday. I expect thereafter the Rules Committee to meet, as is consistent with the rules, to prepare a reconciliation bill and to report it to this floor. I expect them to report a rule to consider that reconciliation bill, and I expect that reconciliation bill to be considered.

No, you said a number of things before that which I was responding to. But, yes, Members should prepare to be here next weekend.

Of course, as the gentleman knows, the gentleman's party has used that process as well, as I am sure the gentleman knows. But, in any event, we will follow the rules. We will have a vote on the rule, consistent with the rules.

I have not talked to the chairwoman of the Rules Committee at this point in time, so that I cannot give you a specific response and have not heard--this is the first I have heard something referred to in the terms you have just referred to it as. But we will provide for a rule for consideration of the Senate bill for reconciliation, and the process of doing so will be consistent with the rules.

What the President was referring to, of course, in terms of an up-or-down vote, was a majority vote. One of the problems we have had in the Senate, as the gentleman knows and experienced as well when his party was in the majority, it is difficult to get an up-or-down vote when the majority of the Senate is for something. They have to get an extraordinary majority, some 60 votes, before they can bring a bill to the floor.

That process, obviously, thwarts, does not facilitate, a vote by the majority. In fact, a minority in the Senate on a regular basis thwarts the will of the majority. That is what the President was referring to, that he wanted an up-or-down vote on that, and I expect we are going to get an up-or-down vote in the Senate. Why? Because in the Senate they have rules that we are going to follow, as you did in 16 out of the 22 times, that allow for an up-or-down majority vote in the United States Senate.

We have to have, as you know, a majority vote in the House, and we consistently do have measures that can fail or succeed, depending upon the will of the majority, as opposed to the thwarting by the minority.

I tell the gentleman that nothing will pass here without a majority vote.

I expect the House to have very significant time to consider the proposals that come out of the Budget Committee and/or the Rules Committee. And this bill, of course, either bill, the House bill or the Senate bill, as proposed, have been online for some 2\1/2\ months, otherwise known as about 75 days. So there has been ample time to review the bill, whether it is the Senate bill or the House bill. So my friend is, I am sure, well aware of what is in the Senate bill and what is in the House bill.

In addition to that, the President put online his proposed compromises between the Senate and the House, which have been the subject of great discussion, including the bipartisan meeting that the gentleman and I attended at the White House, an extraordinary, historical meeting at which the President invited leaders from both parties and both Houses to come and discuss what he believed to be a historic opportunity to provide health care accessibility to all Americans.

So I say to my friend that we will certainly give as much notice as possible, but I am not going to say that 72 hours is going to be the litmus test, per se, because that which we have voted on already in the House and the Senate have given Members months of notice and the American public months of notice on the substance of the propositions that are pending before us.

First of all, the 72-hour rule, I didn't say that we were casting aside any rule, nor did I say that we may not have more than 72 hours' notice. You may well have more than 72 hours' notice. What I said to you was I am not going to commit myself and then have 70 hours as opposed to 72 hours and think that I have violated some representation that I made. We want to give as much notice as we possibly can.

This has been a very difficult discussion, as you know, and as you well know, the Members on your side of the aisle in the other body have indicated they are going to do everything in their power to stop the passage of this legislation. So we need to get about this business and engage, if you will.

The gentleman has had 72 days, I tell the gentleman, to review the bill that he refers to--72 days, not 72 hours--72 days in final form to review the bill.

Now, you can keep saying this. You can keep telling the American public that somehow we are ramming something through. You have had, I tell the gentleman, and you know you have had, 72 days, at least, to review the bill as it stands today.

Let me repeat the process that I'm sure the gentleman knows well. The Budget Committee will meet. They will report out the bills that are to be reconciled. The Rules Committee will then take them under consideration shortly thereafter and will present a reconciliation bill. We will all see it at that point in time. It will obviously do exactly what the instructions that we adopted in the budget a year ago instructed it to do, and that is to reconcile these bills.

And it will have a fiscally positive effect, in my view. I haven't seen it yet finally, but my expectation is it will have a positive fiscal impact, and we will all see that. But it will be simply following the instructions that the Budget Committee in the budget passed. I don't think the gentleman voted for it; but, nevertheless, the majority of the House did vote for it.

I know that the other body doesn't like majority will. Maybe that is not the case here. But I will tell the gentleman that, yes, he is going to see the reconciliation bill. And as I said, the reconciliation bill, which will be drafted by the Rules Committee after the Budget Committee reports to it, the process that you followed on a regular basis when you utilized reconciliation. We will hope to have as much notice of that particular piece of legislation as possible.

But I tell my friend, again, when he refers to the health care bill, the Senate bill or the House bill, you have had months to review the substance of that bill. You don't like it. We understand it. You're going to oppose it. We understand that as well. But the fact of the matter is you cannot say that you have not had notice of each and every one of its provisions for over 2 months.

I don't have knowledge of that at this point in time; so I can't give my friend a definitive answer. But as my friend does know, that language, or any other alternative language, may not qualify for reconciliation.

It wasn't a translation. It was an accurate reporting of what I said.

As I said, we don't believe that any change in that language--because the gentleman is well aware reconciliation needs to deal with budgetary impact--we don't believe that can be dealt within reconciliation.

Will my friend yield on that issue?

That is an interesting letter. I'm glad you brought it up, because you brought it up in juxtaposition to the issue of the Stupak amendment. What the letter essentially said is, even if you send over the Stupak language and we agree with the Stupak language, we will not waive the Byrd rule.

So even though they agree with the policy, they won't waive the Byrd rule. Why? They want to defeat the bill. We understand that. That is what that letter said. And I think Americans probably, if they knew enough about the process and could take the time to do what you and I do to follow this very closely, they know what is going on.

And, very frankly, it is ironic that 41 Senators will say, notwithstanding the fact that they may agree with the proposition that we put in the bill and sent over to them, that they would not waive the rule to adopt the proposition with which they agree for procedural purposes of defeating the bill.

As the gentleman knows, the language in the Senate bill specifically provides for no government funding. I know there is a dispute because there is a contribution towards policies. But, as you know, the Senate drew language very carefully to ensure that no public funds were spent for or participated in purchasing insurance for abortion services.

In fact, as the gentleman, I'm sure, well knows, the Senate language specifically provides that if those protections are going to be purchased, they must be purchased by separate payment with none, either subsidy dollars or government dollars, that they must be spent out of an individual's personal pocket.

This is an extraordinarily difficult issue not only for the Congress but for Americans generally and for individuals. There is a dispute on this language, he is correct. As he knows, neither side likes the language in the Senate bill. One side, the pro-choice side if you will, for simplification, believes that the language goes beyond the Hyde language. The Catholic bishops believe it is short of the Hyde language. There is a difference of opinion on that. I think the gentleman understands that well. There are other groups which believe that, in fact, the language that is in the Senate bill does, in fact, as I have projected it does, preclude any public dollars from being spent, which is consistent with the Hyde language.

I tell my friend that from our perspective on this side of the aisle, there is no intent nor objective of changing the Hyde language in any health care legislation that is adopted. The President has indicated that is his intent. That is our intent. And that is why we are proceeding in the manner we are.

I think the gentleman correctly states the Senate Parliamentarian's position, and therefore I think the gentleman is correct on that observation. I might say to him, while I do not know the entire thrust of the reconciliation bill, I can guarantee him this: The reconciliation bill will take out that Nebraska provision which offended him, offended me, and I think offended people across America, not because it advantaged Nebraska, but because it advantaged Nebraska unequally.

I think the gentleman is going to be pleased that Nebraska will be treated like every other State; and, in fact, every other State will be advantaged to the same extent that the Senator wanted to make sure that Nebraska was advantaged. But the Nebraska provision to which the gentleman speaks, and which all of us have felt was inappropriate, will be changed.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, let me say to the gentleman from Virginia that Maryland and Virginia and a lot of other States think the bill we passed through this House on algae is critically important to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. I'm sure the gentleman shares that view with me, a critically important bill for the health of our bay and its estuaries. I happen to live on a river, the Patuxent River, and the gentleman's State feels the Chesapeake Bay is a major asset of his, as well and of his State. So I know that he is pleased that we passed that bill. It was an important bill.

We are here trying to make sure that we have the time to get ready to pass a major historic piece of legislation that Teddy Roosevelt set us on the path to accomplish over a century ago so that we have accomplished, I think, a significant piece of legislation today.

Let me say that in addition to that, we believe the jobs agenda is very important. We passed a bill through here last week. The Senate passed a bill over to us. We are in the process of considering those bills. And I want to say to the gentleman that I share his view, that we look forward to working together to try to get Americans back to work.

I won't go through the litany of how we got here. The gentleman has heard it before. But I will tell the gentleman this part of it, that in 4 months of the last administration, as he well knows, we lost over 700,000 jobs per month. During the last 4 months here, we have lost 27,000 jobs per month. That is a 95 percent reduction in the loss of jobs. Surely anybody who is fair-minded will say that is progress. It is not success. We need to create jobs. We have lost 8 million jobs over the last 2 years.

People are hurting in America. Families are hurting in America. We need to get people back to work. We are going to keep continuing to make sure that when they can't find a job because they are not available that they don't go hungry, that they can support themselves and their families, not to the level that they would if they were working, but certainly support themselves in a way that we think is humanitarian. So those are included in those bills, as the gentleman knows.

I will tell the gentleman that we feel keenly the pain of the American public confronting this historic great recession, the deepest recession that we have seen in 75 years. The gentleman knows that in the decade of the 1990s, we saw the best economy that you and I have seen in our lifetime, and I, of course, am very substantially older than you are. That is an admission against interest, but it nevertheless is true. So I will yield back to the gentleman saying we share your view. We want to continue to work on this jobs agenda.